


ST Shorts - March 2019

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Series: Stranger Things One Shots/Shorts [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Coming Out, Angst, Basketball, Bike Wreck, Blood, Bullying, Coming Out, Coughing, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Homophobic Language, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Plot Twists, Punching, Queen (The Band), References to a Suicide Attempt, Singing, Sleep, Sleep talking, Song Lyrics, Sports, Verbal Abuse, mention of a panic attack, nose bleed, not explicitly, ted wheeler sucks in this, vague humor, very very breifly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 03:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18229472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: A collection of one shots written based off prompts given by my brother.





	1. Will and Mike - "What were you thinking?! You could've killed yourself!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based around the idea that Dustin told Will about what happened at the quarry where Mike nearly kills himself. My brother and I both agree that the fact this scene goes completely untalked about for the rest of the show is a little concerning and the fact it happened at all is _very_ concerning. So there's that.
> 
> Other than that, there is no explicit mention of the cliff. So I hope you like this one shot.

Blessedly, Will waited until after they heard the door downstairs slam closed. Mike’s parents were heading out for a “date night”. Which honestly, Nancy had said, was just a front for people continuing to think they had a perfect marriage. Mike was just glad that it gave them one night a week without either parent in the house.

Dustin and Lucas had left just a little while before Karen and Ted, and Nancy had taken Holly over to her new friend’s house for a sleepover.

So it was just Mike and Will, alone in Mike’s room.

And Will was _fuming_.

As soon as the front door closed and they could be sure they were alone, Will rounded on Mike, his expression nothing short of white hot flames.

Fuck. Time for damage control.

“Will,” Mike started, raising his hands in a placating gesture, “listen. It’s not as bad as Dustin made it sound-”

“Are you kidding me?” Will’s tone was like molten lead pouring down Mike’s back.

“No, Will, listen-”

“What were you _thinking?!_ ” he nearly raged. “You could’ve _killed_ yourself!”

The fires of rage seemed to part for half a second, stumbling over the second to last word. And that was it, there, behind them- What this really was. Fear.

Will was scared. He was absolutely, going out of his mind, scared.

All because Dustin had to open his big, stupid mouth.

When Mike didn’t say anything, Will’s eyes started going red. His expression pulled into a frown, clearly against Will’s wishes. His eyebrows twitched hard back and forth between the painful scrunch of a sob and the lowered hard line of anger. Will started to lose his firm stance, his posture beginning to crumple in on him.

And Mike couldn’t think of a thing to do.

Will’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Say something!”

Mike’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, searching for something- anything- to say. But… nothing. Nothing he said could make this better.

“Mike!” Will pleaded. “Say something, please!”

He took an aborted half step towards Mike, his hands unclenching and reaching up into thin air before dropping a little bit once again.

Mike couldn’t think of a thing he could say. But he had to do something. He found himself closing the distance between them, watching Will’s face crumple fully into a sob as Mike hugged him. He hugged him as tightly as he possibly could.

And Will just cried. His nails clutched into Mike’s t-shirt, grasping almost painfully, sobbing into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Mike muttered almost uselessly, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” They just kept coming, he just kept apologizing, mumbling the words and listening to Will cry and plead for something- anything.

“You could’ve died…” Will breathed once he’d finally caught a breath to speak with.

“I know,” Mike replied sadly. “I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and please let me know what you thought. Feel free to leave prompts or ideas as well. Thanks!


	2. Will to the Party - "I've been through worse..."

Troy was a jackass. Honestly.

He’d been picking at Will all fucking day and the entire Party was getting completely fed up with it.

But then, almost at the end of the day, Will snapped. Troy had made a particularly obscene jab Will about being a “fag”. And then it was like the entire world slowed down. Because Mike watched with wide eyes and a slack jaw as Will stopped mid step, turning on a dime, and back tracked. He came within a foot of Troy, winding his arm back for a punch.

And then Will Byers straight up _decked_ Troy Thompson.

Which was the exact moment time sped back up. Troy stumbled back, a hand flying up to the side of his face to hold his cheek. When he regained his footing and checked to see if he was bleeding, his eyes turned back to Will.

Then the next second, Will was on the ground with blood pouring from his nose.

Troy laughed at the scene before him, the Party rushing forward to help and protect. Lucas had to hold Max back from beating Troy’s ass, and Mike kept a hand firmly on El’s wrist. It wouldn’t do to have either of them getting into anymore trouble during their first week of sophomore year.

“Well look at that,” Troy sneered, his goons blocking him in on both sides now, “The Fairy Brigade to the rescue of the little fag. How precious.”

Mike fully contemplated letting El go and take a crack at them. Troy was lucky that he didn’t remember her from his broken arm in seventh grade.

As Troy turned away, he called over his shoulder, “You’re dead next time, Byers.”

After a few seconds of everyone catching their collective breaths and calming down, they turned to Will fussing over him and the blood now staining his hands and shirt.

“Are you alright?”

“I think the nurse is still here.”

“We should get you to the bathroom.”

“Do you want us to ride home with you?”

“I could kill him for you.”

Will huffed out a laugh at them, his voice oddly muffled from his bloody hand pressed against his nose.

“Eh, I’ve been through worse.”

The entire Party stilled for a split second, going still as statues and not daring to breathe.

“Oh come on, guys!” Will sighed good naturedly, hoisting himself up to his feet. “I’m alright! Let’s just get me to stop bleeding and we can head to the mall like we planned. Okay?”

Reluctantly, they agreed. Mike joined Lucas and Dustin in walking Will to the bathroom and helping to get him cleaned up. There wasn’t much they could do for his shirt, but Mike remembered his gym clothes. So Will borrowed his t-shirt. A little sweaty was still better than bloody.

The mall was fun, as usual, even if Will’s nose did resume bleeding twice while they were there. Steve saw it happen out of the blue in the ice cream shop, and he nearly screamed, thinking suddenly that Will had powers and was using them.

Will went home that evening feeling good. He’d gotten a pretty good punch in against Troy and the bully hadn’t even gotten a hit in edgewise. Oh sure, it looked like it alright. Troy swung, Will moved and let himself fall to the ground to hold his bleeding nose.

Thankfully, in the middle of the afternoon, nobody noticed or questioned the surge of power and flickering lights inside the building behind them.

Will laid down in bed smiling, looking forward to the bruise Troy would be sporting tomorrow. He focused his eyes on his light switch on the other side of the room, jerking his chin down suddenly.

The light turned off and Will snuggled into his bed, content to sleep.


	3. Mike to Will - "You're not fine. You need to rest."

Mike knew that Will wanted to go home. He understood that. Really, he did.

But Will had only been back for about two days and he still wasn’t looking good. He was pale and too skinny and he coughed a lot and he had nightmares just yesterday he’d had what Joyce had called a panic attack.

Today he seemed a little better, but he was restless. He hated the IV in his arm and he hated laying down so much and he was already tired of applesauce and broth and popsicles, which was all they were allowing him to eat at the moment. Apparently there was something wrong with this stomach. And Will hated that too.

“I want to go home, Mike,” Will confessed to him. Dustin and Lucas were out of the room and trying to find a vending machine to get snacks or drinks from. Mike sat in the chair next to Will, looking up from his comic book at Will’s downcast expression.

“I know,” he tried to empathize. “But, hey. You’ll be home soon.”

“I want to be home, now!” Will exclaimed weakly, his hands flying up into the air and then flopping back down to the mattress. “I’m fine!”

“You’re not fine. You need to rest.” Mike hated being the “bad guy” here, but he hoped that Will might listen to him. “The doctors still need to watch you for a bit and make sure you can actually breathe on your own and all that. Then you can go home.”

Will finally turned his eyes to Mike, their look a little broken and watery.

“Promise?”

Mike tried for a smile for him. It came out a little tight, a little too sad. So he reached and squeezed Will’s hand instead.

“Promise.”


	4. Nancy to Mike - "I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Pay attention to the tags pertaining to homophobia for this one. It's kinda intense. Stay safe.

It was late. Like so late it was too fucking early. But the night had been long and hard and awful so far.

Nancy had gotten back from a date with Jonathan a lot later than she’d meant to, and as she’d come into the house, she noticed there were still too many lights on. All the downstairs lighters were on, but at 11:30 at night, it was usually just the light over the stove in the kitchen and the TV in the living room.

She closed the door gingerly behind her, suddenly registering the voice from the room to her left.

Mike was sat in the middle of the couch, their mother kneeling in front of him and quite possibly crying. Their father was pacing the room, his voice angry and agitated.

Nancy heard the words “disappointment”, “conversion”, and “camp” before she pulled herself out of her shock to storm into the room.

“What’s going on?”

Her father rounded on her, his usually uncaring, passive expression hard with anger.

“This doesn’t concern you, Nancy. Go up to your room.”

She frowned, crossing her arms.

“If it’s about my brother then it concerns me. What’s going on?”

“It’s not his fault, Nancy. He’s just confused, that’s all-”

“I’m not confused!” Mike shouted, shoving his mother’s hands off him.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” Ted roared.

The desired effect seemed to work on Mike, but not Nancy.

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Nancy yelled right back.

“Upstairs! Now!”

“No!”

To add to the chaos, the phone started ringing. Ted yelled how this was just perfect and what decent person was calling at this time of night. Karen just started crying more hysterically. The phone rang a few times before Nancy was ordered to go answer it in the kitchen.

“We’re still dealing with your him.” He spat the pronoun like Mike was tainted, like just referring to his son would infect him.

Nancy thought about ti for a second, before enough was enough and she picked up the phone on the side table by the La-Z-Boy. She stared her furious father in the eye as she answered.

“Hello?”

_“Hey, Nance, it’s Jonathan.”_

“Jonathan? What’s up?”

_“Is Mike okay?”_

“Um… I’m not sure. Why?”

_“Will came home crying and saying that he’d never see Mike again or something and that they’d been… ‘found out’? I’m not sure, he’s pretty inconsolable right now. What’s going on?”_

Suddenly it dawned on her. Her father’s anger, her mother’s crying, her brother’s uncomfortable, and distressed posture.

“Okay. I think I understand. I’ll handle it.”

She hung up without saying goodbye, letting the phone dangle in her grip. Jonathan would have to wait. Mike could not.

Nancy fixed her eyes compassionately on her little brother, still fending off their mother’s grasping hands.

“What happened?” she asked firmly, but not unkindly.

“Nancy, I said go up to your ro-”

“I didn’t ask you,” she bit out venomously at him, sparing her father little more than an icey glance. “Mike, tell me what happened.”

“Will… Will was over and we were in my room but Dad came upstairs and-”

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH YOU LITTLE FAGGOT!”

And that was all Nancy needed to hear. Without another word, just a meaningful look directed pointedly at Mike, she turned around. Her jacket was still on and she grabbed her mother’s car keys off the hook by the front door on her way past towards the stairs.

Upstairs she passed Holly’s room where she might have heard crying. She’d have to deal with that once this was all over but Mike was the priority.

Nancy continued on to Mike’s room, flipping on his light and snagging his backpack from the floor. She shoved as many clean shirts, underwear, and pants into the bag that would fit, ripping a jacket off its hanger and stopping only for his toothbrush in the bathroom. If he needed anything else, she could bring it to him later.

Downstairs, Ted had restarted his rant and Karen was finally no longer crying.

Nancy stopped at the front door.

“Mike,” she called with an air of authority and confidence that she hoped would shut her usually spineless father up. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Karen asked sniffily.

“You aren’t taking him anywhere. He’s staying right here to think about what he’s been deceived into by that f-”

“Say that word one more time and I swear to God, Dad,” Nancy silenced him.

Karen gasped and started crying again.

Nancy was fed up with this. She stalked back into the room, grabbed Mike’s wrist, and pulled him along with her.

“Where do you think you’re taking him?!” Ted demanded.

She didn’t respond to him.

Nancy led her brother out of the house, hurrying him to the car and all but shoving him inside with his bag and jacket.

“Where are we going, Nancy?” Mike asked in an uncharacteristically small voice. She barely got her seat belt buckled before starting the car and all but tearing out of their driveway. Their father had followed them out, trying to run after them. He wasn’t yelling anymore, not out in public where he might wake the neighbors, but just glared at them with a hard look.

“Nancy?”

“Will’s.”

The ride didn’t take long and Nancy was definitely speeding nearly the whole damn time. The inhabitants of the Byers household must have heard the car pull up outside since all three of them appeared through the opening front door. Just as she threw the car into park and started to get out, she thought better of it. She turned in her seat, taking Mike’s hand gently.

“Mike…” He looked at her with worried eyes. “I don’t care. I don’t care if this is who you are or who you love. You are my brother. I want you to know that I will always be in your corner, fighting for you. Mom and Dad can go fuck themselves.”

Mike laughed abruptly out of shock, the little chuckle sounding a little wet.

“I love you, Mike”

“I love you too.”


	5. Dustin to Lucas - "I am dying. There is nothing you can do about it."

“I’m dying, Lucas,” Dustin groaned dramatically. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Lucas just rolled his eyes at him.

“Oh whatever, you big baby,” he said, leaning over and offering his hand to help his friend up. “You just fell off your bike. You’re fine.”

“No I’m not,” Dustin retorted. He sat up, inspecting his knee. It was scraped and just barely bleeding.

“See? Blood!”

Lucas sighed. “God, whatever. Just get up already so we can go home.”

“But what if it gets infected?”

“You let a baby demogorgon live in your room and lick you in eighth grade. You’re fine.”


	6. Will to Mike - "I believe in you."

Mike was, against his better judgement, trying out for basketball. His father was getting increasingly more up in arm about the fact that he wasn’t in a sport, but he wasn’t built for a lot of contact sports like football. So Will had suggested basketball since the tryouts were soon.

Mike had agreed and for the next week and a half, his anxiety started spiking through the roof. When he’d confessed as much to Will one night over the weekend when he’d been staying over, Will had half teased that now Mike knew how he felt. And once his best friend duties were carried out, so were the boyfriend duties of doing his best to calm Mike about his “impending doom”. Or, that’s what Mike called it anyway.

But now it was the day of. School had just let out and tryouts were starting in an hour. A/V had been canceled for the day because of prior engagements, so it was just Will and Mike in the club’s meeting room. The door was shut and locked and the window’s blinds were drawn.

Will smiled sweetly at Mike, hugging him gently and swaying with him to music that only he could hear.

“I believe in you,” he sighed on a breath.

Mike kept that phrase bouncing around in his head for the rest of the afternoon, seeing it imprinted on the ball in his hands and along the rim of the hoop and the lights of the scoreboard. And in Will’s face as he sat just outside the group of spectators gathered to watch.

Will believed in Mike. That’s all that mattered in his book.


	7. Mike to Will - "I heard you talking in your sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is not a short little one shot. It's not even a one shot. But because it was written with the intention of it being short and lumped in with all the other prompts I've done, I've elected to post it in here as well. Though it might get its own full story connected to this one.

Will slept late into the morning. Of course, this was to be expected after a very late night with the Party. They hadn’t had a sleepover in god knows how long, and since they were at the Byers house, El and Max got to stay too.

They’d ended up sprawled all over Will’s bedroom. He’d given his bed up to Eleven and Max, both of whom tried a few times to protest but in the end fell asleep all tangled up together. Will thought it was funny, if a little irritating. Girls could do that without any consequences and no one batted an eye, but if Will wanted that with a boy then people act like the fucking world is ending.

So Will settled with his cozy little setup of his green and gray sleeping bag on the floor in the corner by the wall. Conveniently right next to Mike who was walling him in all night in his own blue and yellow sleeping bag. They probably laid a bit too close together for society’s standards, but, honestly, who in the Party cared much to notice anymore? It was still Christmas break at Hawkins Middle and it was cold outside. Just over two months ago, they’d all gone through a second version of the same hell from last year. So Mike closing Will in and effectively making him feel safe enough to sleep normally?

Well, it’s like they say. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

So by the time Will was cracking his eyes open the next morning, he was the last one awake. El and Max were gone from his bed and Dustin’s and Lucas’ sleeping bags were sitting empty and mussed on the floor. Mike was still right next to him, but he definitely wasn’t sleeping, lying on his back and tracing patterns on the ceiling with his eyes.

“Morning,” Will greeted, his voice squeaking just a tiny bit as he shifted and stretched his arms.

Mike’s head turned, his eyes falling to land on Will with a fond little smile.

“Thought you’d never wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Even the girls weren’t out this long.”

Teasing. God, it was too damn early for teasing.

“It’s too early for your shit, Wheeler,” Will accused.

“It’s after ten.”

He chuckled, the action acknowledging his claim’s lack of legitimacy. “Whatever.”

Mike chuckled back at him, stretching briefly before falling back to look at the ceiling again.

They laid in silence for a moment or two, Will unwilling to leave the warmth of his sleeping bag and Mike seemingly content right where he was.

“Hey,” Mike said softy, breaking the quiet of the room around them.

Will looked over at him.

“Do you want to go out to Castle Byers today?”

Will thought about it for a second, before shrugging and nodding his head in agreement. Why not? There wasn’t snow on the ground so he could be sure that they weren’t going to get in there and find every available surface meant for sitting covered in the stuff. Or, at least he figured that was the case. It hadn’t snowed yet and he hadn’t heard of any snow coming. His mother would have mentioned it if there was.

“Sure.”

*

The Party was staying over another night. And Will was happy about that. Not that he thought it was fun at all, but it felt surreal thinking about everyone (adults and teen siblings included) being in one house for any extended period of time. And he always seemed to be the one not present or conscious for it, and it always left him feeling a little detached. So the times in which they all decided that his house would be their crash pad for the afternoon or the weekend, he liked the feeling of the small house filled with the people he cared about most.

Of course, he wouldn’t dare speak any of that aloud to anyone.

But they wanted to run around in the woods for the afternoon. At least until they all got cold or they lost light. Winter was stupid that way, the dark of evening coming way too early, leaving the world looking like night time by 5 o’clock.

Tromping through the dry, dead leaves turned into a game of tag that turned into hide and seek, which turned into “pretend to attempt to build a bigger fort because Castle Byers was too small for all of them and no one wanted to ask Will to mess with it”. Which he appreciated. Castle Byers was fine the way it was. He had no problem with a second fort that they could call… The Dungeon or even Party Dungeon or something stupid like that. It could be cool.

But that quickly fell apart since they didn’t have the same materials as Castle Byers and Jonathan wasn’t there to direct them in any semblance of order. So then it turned into hide and seek again.

Will turned down playing with them. He’d played enough hide and seek in his life in these woods, alternate dimension or not. Everyone had offered to play something else, but Will had brushed it off. Said he’d sit at the fort and watched. That he liked to watch them play the game. It was fun.

They let it go, only a bit reluctantly, and headed off a little ways to play. Mike played a round or two before coming to join Will inside Castle Byers.

He hunched over slightly at the doorway, asking for entrance. Will asked for the password, and when given the correct one, allowed his friend in to join him on the old blanket covered pallet.

“Tired of playing?” Will inquired.

Mike shrugged, watching the sheet curtain door slip and flutter closed over the opening. He must have knocked it on his way inside.

“Just bored of running around in the woods, I suppose.”

Will scrunched a teasing smile at him a little curiously. “We’ve only been out here for like an hour and a half.”

Mike donned a mock affronted look. “And?” he asked incredulously. “This coming from the same boy who called 10:27 ‘too early’.”

Will shoved him and laughed. “Whatever!”

It turned into a soft shoving match until one of them got a good shot in on the other and nearly sent them toppling into a wall of the fort. Which would bring the whole structure down, and that was not ideal. So they gave it a rest, puffing out chuckles of laughter every few seconds but otherwise settling in close together in the cold winter air.

Will noticed some old paperback book that he’d forgotten to take back inside when the weather turned cool. He couldn’t remember bringing it out here or even the last time he’d read it. So he reached over and picked it up, sitting back and resting his shoulder against Mike’s arm. The book opened a little stiffly, and it was possible that a few of the pages were stuck together. But Will started reading it anyway.

Mike broke him out of his book-induced fantasy world several minutes later.

“You know…”

Will hummed to show he was listening.

“I heard you talking in your sleep.”

He felt his eyebrows knit together. He didn’t know he talked in his sleep. As far as Will knew, he’d never been known to do that. And he’d had enough sleepovers with Dustin and Lucas to know whether he talked in his sleep or not. They would have teased him relentlessly for it.

Will looked back up from his book, closing it with little interest of returning to it. Mike wasn’t looking at him, just watching the sheet sway gently in the cold breeze.

“I sleep talk?” Will prompted him.

He got a nod. “Yeah… You’ve been doing it for about a year now.”

“I have?!” he exclaimed, shooting up away from Mike to get a better look at him.

Mike just nodded again.

“What do I say?”

That got him a non committal shake of the head. “Mostly just a bunch of gibberish. You aren’t loud enough for us to make anything out most of the time. There was one time you talked about a goose, and then another you actually seemed to be talking to Frodo.”

And… honestly, what the hell are you supposed to say to that?

Except-

“And you expect me to believe that Lucas and Dustin wouldn’t have ripped on me for that constantly because…?”

“I made them promise not to,” Mike sighed.

“Why?”

“Because… Because one night, you talked about me.”

Mike’s eyes were shifting all over the place, finding nothing to focus on. But not once did they land on Will.

Will could feel his heart starting to beat harder, racing in his chest. It felt like it was crawling up his throat. No… no, this couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Will knew what could happen to him if any of his thoughts or secrets were heard by anyone. Let alone one of the main subjects of those thoughts! Will would… he would… he’d be out of a good group of friends at least, that was for sure. At worst he’d be out of a home and… No, he’d be out of a life at worst.

God no… Mike had to be messing with him. Except that Mike wasn’t that cruel.

He shook his head hard, moving off the pallet and trying to back away. “No… no, no I didn’t. Whatever you heard… it was a mistake. Some stupid sleep talk. I don’t have any control over that! It’s just-”

“Will!” Mike reached out for him, his hands closing on Will’s forearms firmly. His grip wasn’t painful. Not like Will imagined it would be in this situation. “Will, calm down! Hang on a second, just… just wait.”

“Mike. I’m sorry. Just… just let go and… and-”

“It’s okay!” Mike said over him. As soon as the words came out, loud but not harsh, he looked around quickly. As if he would suddenly find them surrounded by prying eyes.

And, hell, they might.

Mike lowered his voice, his eyes turning to Will and finally making contact with him. “It’s okay. I- I wanted to tell you.”

Will had to make a conscious effort to unclench his jaw to say something. “Tell me what?”

“That… I know, and- and I get it. I understand.”

He felt himself go completely still. Did… did Mike really mean that?

“You-?”

“I’m not… not completely sure yet, but… But I… I know that I-”

“Mike…”

“I care about you. A lot…”

Will wasn’t sure what to say. His pulse was jumping again, his heart in his throat, but now he was sure he didn’t want to run. He was more inclined to get up and scream before jumping around like a fucking girl and-

Okay, that was kinda mean to girls, and that’s not what he meant. But still. He wanted to do that.

But he still didn’t know what to say.

“Will?” Mike’s tone took on a new quality. Something small and pleading and- god, Mike was scared. “Say something?”

“I… I care about you too…” Will whispered, hushed and aware that he was only separated from the outside word by tarps and a sheet. “A lot.”

The grin that split Mike’s face was totally worth it. Worth absolutely everything.


	8. Eleven to Will - "But I want to hear you sing."

“Why do you keep turning the volume down?” Will asked, reaching for the dial on his radio once again to turn the volume back up.

El shrugged. “Because I want to hear you sing the songs.”

He looked at her funny. “Why?”

She shrugged again. “Because I only ever heard you sing in the Upside Down. And Mike said he wouldn’t call that singing.”

“Oh…” He dropped his eyes to his hands, ducking his head almost shyly.

“And I think you’re a good singer.”

Will glanced up at her. “You do?”

El nodded again. “I do.”

“Well…” he said, turning the dial back down. “Alright then. But you have to promise to stop using your powers on my radio. It’s old enough. It doesn’t need another reason to break, okay?”

She smiled at him and nodded.

A Queen song from a year or two ago had just begun to play.

_“I want to break free from your lies_   
_You’re so self satisfied I don’t need you_   
_I’ve got to break free_   
_God knows, God knows I want to break free.”_


End file.
